Message from the President

For my first message as your incoming
President, I want to sincerely thank and
acknowledge Peter Lively, our 2017 President.
Peter, you served us honorably. Peter did an
unbelievable amount of work during his term as
president and his dedication to our organization is
unparalleled. Among his many accomplishments,
Peter leaves us with a sensible and structured
system for providing our members with the ability
to live video stream our MCLE programs. We have
had as many as 25 member-participants attend the
meeting and program via live video stream!

As your new president, I would like to remind
you that as 2018 gets underway, it is time to renew
your CDCBAA membership.

2017 was chock-full of terrifi c MCLE
programs such as Settlements in Bankruptcy and
Adversary Cases with the Hon. Neil W. Bason and
board-members Stella Havkin, Raymond H. Aver
and James Selth; the Fourth Annual James T. King Bankruptcy
Symposium - Exemptions: Is Bad Faith a Factor
Or Not? with the Hon. Theodor Albert, Prof. Mark
S. Scarberry, attorney John N. Tedford, IV and our
very own M. Jonathan Hayes; Upcoming Changes
in the Chapter 13 Rules and Plan with the Hon.
Meredith A. Jury, Akihito Koyama, Senior Staff
Attorney to Chapter 13 Trustee Kathy Dockery and
our former president Nancy B. Clark; Understanding
Midland Funding V. Johnson with Tara Twomey
(National Consumer Bankruptcy Rights Center) and
attorneys Whitman L. Holt and Robert J. Pfi ster;
Meet the Court Clerk: What Goes on Behind the
Clerk’s Window with the Hon. Martin Barash, Clerk
of the Court Kathy Campbell, Akihito Koyama, and
Jeff Cozad, Law Clerk to Hon. Vincent Zurzolo;
Bankruptcy Appeals: It’s Not as Hard as it Looks
with BAP Staff Attorney Sarah Stevenson and M.
Jonathan Hayes; Why Use the Court’s Mediation
Program in Consumer Bankruptcy Cases with the
Hon. Barry Russell and attorneys David B. Lally
and J. Scott Bovitz; and we started out 2017 with M.
Jonathan Hayes’ 11th Annual Review of 9th Circuit
Decisions on Bankruptcy in 2016 with the Hon.
Vincent Zurzolo, Hon. Laura Taylor, Chief Judge,
Southern District of California and Judge of the 9th
Circuit Bankruptcy Appellate Panel. Many thanks to
these excellent panelists!

We concluded 2017 with our 14th Annual
Calvin Ashland Awards Dinner – honoring Judge
of the Year, Meredith A. Jury. Special thanks to
our former president Keith Higginbotham and
board member Christian Cooper and for organizing
the event. It was well attended by not only our
members, but also by the judges and trustees.

2018 promises more of the same! We are
hard at work on more excellent programs that will be
announced at our meeting and program on
January 27, 2018: M. Jonathan Hayes’ 12th Annual
Review of 9th Circuit Decisions on Bankruptcy
in 2017 with the Hon. Julia Brand, Judge Central
District of California and Judge of the 9th Circuit
Bankruptcy Appellate Panel, and the Hon. Charles
Novack.

And if that were not enough, our listserv is
an invaluable opportunity to share interesting issues
with fellow members.

For all of the reasons listed above, please
consider renewing your cdcbaa membership early.
For those of you looking for a wonderful gift for a
colleague, consider the gift of cdcbaa membership.
Moreover, for those loyal members, consider
introducing colleagues to the cdcbaa and encourage
them to sign up for what promises to be a fantastic
2018.

I would like to extend a warm welcome to the
four new members of cdcbaa’s Board of Directors:
James Selth of Weintraub, Selth & Nguyen APC,
Gary R. Wallace of the Law Offi ce of Gary R.
Wallace, Carolyn M. Afari of the Afari Law Firm,
and Lucy Mavyan with Chapter 7 Trustee Wesley H.
Avery.

Many thanks to our entire board of directors
and our other members who volunteer their time,
energy and knowledge to the success of our group!
Todd Turoci edited this Newsletter and will be
working on publishing at least two more this year. If
you have an idea for an article or want to brief a case,
please contact him.

Finally, a very special thank you to my mentor
and our past president, M. Jonathan Hayes, who has
devoted an enormous amount of time and energy
into teaching all of us how to be better bankruptcy
attorneys. His panels are among our best-attended
and we greatly appreciate his hard work and
creativity.